


To the Heart's Deep Chamber, Every One

by Port



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-15
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 03:32:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12099783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Port/pseuds/Port
Summary: Laura Barton, a CIA agent tasked with finding missing people, first meets the Black Widow on assignment in Russia. It's the start of a beautiful friendship.





	To the Heart's Deep Chamber, Every One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inkvoices](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/gifts).



> Inkvoices, I loved all your prompts, and we must be of the same mind because I swear some of them I had already wanted to write. Hope you enjoy this story about our favorite spies!
> 
> Thanks to Franzi and Gecko for making this happen!
> 
> Title from Dante's "New Life" translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti:
> 
> "Whatever her sweet eyes are turned upon,  
> Spirits of love do issue thence in flame,  
> Which through their eyes who then may look on them  
> Pierce to the heart's deep chamber every one."

When she visits Russia, her impression is always that it must be impossible to get privacy. The crowds and the scarcity made their impression on her early on, and it seems to bear out in the children’s ward of this hospital in central Moscow. Alina Barkova’s bed is sectioned off by a curtain from those of three other children crowded into the room. But unlike the other children, Alina isn’t ill. She lies listlessly under old quilts piled over blue hospital sheets and stares upward with marred blue eyes. Laura strokes back the hair from her forehead gently, careful not to press on a bruise.

“You’re doing great, sweetheart,” Laura tells her in her accented Russian. “You’re helping me catch him.”

“Will you kill him?” Alina asks Laura plainly. Laura had told her from the start that she was an American spy; no reason not to. She’s not here undercover. Alina clearly thinks Laura is the kind of spy who kills people, and frankly, Laura wishes she were. While she is weighing how to answer, the girl sighs and closes her eyes. 

“I might if he resists me,” Laura finally says. “But either way I will bring him to justice for you.”

These words inspire little more than a disinterested sigh from the little girl. Even the pretty nurse changing another child’s linen looks right at Laura and rolls her eyes.

~~

Laura’s job is to track down missing spies, not to judge them or execute them. Even a man like Nick Fisher, who defected to Russian intelligence, then betrayed his new masters to a third party, identity unknown. Laura has no sympathy for traitors, but what Fisher did to Alina and two other young girls before betraying the Russians--it makes Laura wish she were the kind of spy who killed other spies instead of just finding them. 

The worst of it is that Fisher’s spree of evil will most likely embarrass the higher-ups. If Laura finds him alive, she’ll punch him in the face before smuggling him out of the country, and maybe that will be the worst of it for Fisher. Maybe he won’t ever see a trial or the execution he deserves. Meanwhile, Alina Barkova will never sleep the same again. Laura thinks back to the end of her covert interview with Alina, the girl’s certainty that no justice was possible.

But now the possibility of justice feels tantalizingly close.

Before her is a door, and behind the door is a gagging sound. It sounds like a man gasping desperately for breath. Some struggle is taking place in there, a chair rolling off and hitting something, objects scattering across the floor.

She’s in a dentist’s office, well after hours, an odd place for a spy to hide. Making the rounds of the Russian health care system, she thinks, trying to get Alina’s interview, earlier in the day, out of her mind. The clue that led her here came from that interview, and it seems not to have led her astray, by the sounds of it. Laura double-checks her weapon, given to her by a contact after she’d arrived here, but doesn’t open the door yet. 

The sounds coming from within begin to lower. The crashing stops. Laura opens the door a crack, but before she can look through and see who’s there, another door opens down the hallway. It’s a man in a brown suit, and he looks so surprised to see her that he almost forgets to draw his weapon. Laura by that time is pointing hers at him.

“Drop your weapon,” she says evenly in Russian. That is one phrase she learned without an accent.

The man begins to speak as his gun arcs up to point directly at her. “Hail--”

Laura fires four shots, killing him.

This man is not her first kill, and if she’d been any slower, he’d be standing over her body now. Even so, she mouths a quick prayer.

The quiet brings her back to the moment and the silence coming from the room with the closed door where a man was meeting his end slowly and violently. Laura turns around.

The door is open, the doorway framing a woman in a black catsuit who is pointing a Russian gun at Laura’s chest. Laura considers bringing her gun up to bear, but the woman shakes her head and says, “I have you. Put it down.”

Laura considers, and the woman allows her the time almost casually before Laura puts down her weapon. She takes a look at the woman, curious, and the red hair registers. “You’re the nurse from the children’s ward,” she blurts out. “You were letting me gather your intel.”

The woman smiles. “You have a good way with children. I took advantage.”

The compliment sours Laura’s stomach, the way random comments about her and children usually do. “And here I was thinking you were just a pretty nurse.”

The woman smiles flirtatiously. “Would you like to see what your pretty nurse did to your American traitor?”

She moves aside, keeping the gun trained on Laura. Laura, if she survives this, will need visual verification, so she peers into the room. Yup. 

The woman makes a considering sound, and Laura turns back around. 

“Well?”

“You stood outside this door for five minutes while I garrotted that man. You could have tried to stop me. You would have failed, but you didn’t know that. What would you tell Alina about justice, if you saw her again?”

“I’d tell her she’s safe from him, that he got what he deserved.”

The woman lowered the gun and holstered it. Laura knew that she still better not try anything.

“It’s a shame you killed that man,” the woman said. “We’re still not sure who he represented.”

That little factoid was a gift. Laura responded in kind. “Neither are we.”

The woman nodded. “I’ll tell Alina you said hello.” And then she walked away, as though certain Laura wouldn’t harm her. She really had Laura’s number.

~~~

The next time Laura saw the pretty Russian spy with red hair was at her mentor’s funeral. Laura spotted her in the third pew back, wearing a high-collared black dress that did nothing to flatter her… which made sense. No use drawing attention to yourself when you were Russian intelligence surrounded by all the CIA bigwigs. Her red hair had been dyed brown. 

Laura forgot about the handkerchief blotting out the tears on her cheeks and stared until the woman looked over and made eye contact. She gave Laura a commiserating nod, as though from one mourner to another, then turned back to the service.

When the service let out, Laura shrugged off her co-agents and fell in step with the Russian spy in their midst. “I found out your name,” Laura said, taking note of the woman’s drab heels.

“Don’t tell me; it might be classified,” the woman said. She was heading like everyone else to the church parking lot, and maybe from there to the burial site.

“Is your code name really the Black Widow, Natasha?”

“You don’t like it?”

“It just seems a little too on the nose.”

Natasha smirked. “I’ll bring that back to my superiors. Maybe they can think of something less assuming.”

They walked for a minute in step before Laura asked, “Did your superiors send you here today?”

“No,” Natasha answered, as though she’d been ready for the question. “Eugene Humboldt disrupted Russian intelligence consistently for forty years, and agents under his direction made my life more difficult in the process. When I heard he had died, I became curious. How would the Americans remember and memorialize him? I had some free time, so here I am. What about you? He was obviously your mentor.”

“How do you know I knew him?”

“Not everyone here is crying, Laura.”

“I see I’m not the only one who did her research.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

They had reached a tan Honda that Laura would never have matched with the Black Widow but that somehow seemed right for the persona she had created for the funeral. Natasha didn’t seem in a hurry to get inside. “Humboldt was my mentor, yes. He recruited me and directed me in the field. He taught me most of what I know.”

“And?”

Laura rolled her eyes, then found them filling with tears again. “He was like a father to me.” She wanted to go on and say why, what Humboldt had done for her as an ally in this men’s club they called the CIA, but she couldn’t.

Natasha handed her a clean, slightly wrinkled handkerchief and stood patiently by while Laura composed herself.

Laura finally cleared her throat and looked clearly at the other woman. Natasha looked unworried by the idea she could be arrested any moment and also very interested in Laura. “I don’t like burials, to be honest,” Laura told her. “Do you want to get a drink?”

~~~

Laura never told her bosses that the Black Widow had attended Eugene Humboldt’s funeral service, and she never told them that they had gone out for drinks together afterward. She was pretty sure she wasn’t getting rolled by the Russians, or compromised in any way. Natasha didn’t turn the conversation to intelligence matters; they talked about books and film, to Laura’s pleased surprise. Natasha was as smart as she was beautiful, perceptive in surprising ways, ways that had nothing to do with spycraft. Talking with her was a pleasure.

After closing the bar with very involved conversation, they stood outside on the sidewalk, coming back to themselves, as they waited for Laura’s cab to arrive. Natasha had finally abandoned the role of mousy mourner and faced Laura with growing solemnity.

“I haven’t offered you my condolences yet,” she said. “I hope you will accept them now.”

Laura found herself unable to reply, and simply nodded up and down a few times while trying to hold back sudden tears. “Do you do hugs?” she choked out.

Natasha looked confused by the question. “Oh--oh! I suppose so?”

Laura leaned forward and carefully wrapped her arms around Natasha. She had a drunken sort of fear that if she did this wrong, she would put the woman off hugs for the rest of her life.

After a few heartbeats, Natasha hugged back.

~~~

The nature of Laura’s role at the CIA--finding missing people, discreetly--put her into direct conflict with Russian agents very rarely--so rarely that every time she saw Natasha it was for pleasure. The Black Widow had a way of knowing when Laura was in town. When she would reveal herself, they made time for drinks and good food.

Laura had friends who were girls, both at work and personally, so she hadn’t really been feeling the need for a new one in her life. But there was something compelling about Natasha and (she had to admit) flattering about the Black Widow’s seemingly benign attention. Laura had healthy self-esteem, but she still considered herself relatively plain and unexceptional. She would never be the famed and deadly woman of mystery who was for some reason pursuing friendship with Laura.

One thing she was sure of: Natasha wasn’t trying to compromise her. A hundred conversations had potential openings for talk about work, but Natasha never took the opportunity. The most anyone could say was that she was cultivating a loyalty, but Laura didn’t worry about that too much. She knew which side she was on.

For her own part, Laura liked Natasha, a lot. Her new friend was experienced and world-wise, witty, interested in the arts, and knowledgeable about and tolerant of sports. When she spoke, she gave her full attention to Laura. It was mesmerizing. 

They were sharing a bottle of wine in a rented Prague apartment several months into this arrangement when Natasha asked Laura, “When we met for the second time, you said I was pretty. Do you still think so?”

Laura thought back to that blood-soaked hallway in a dentist’s office and almost laughed. “That’s what you remember about that night? We each killed a man, and it stuck in your mind that I thought you were pretty?”

Natasha stiffened, the smile on her face shrinking into a blank line, her eyes shutting down. Laura realized immediately that humor across cultures was a tenuous thing and that the joking had not come through in her words, and that her friend was about to leave.

“Wait, wait wait!” She grasped Natasha’s wrist, acutely aware that was something she had been allowed to to do. “Sorry, I put my foot in my mouth. I was trying to kid you, not offend. Also, yes, I find you pretty.”

Natasha relaxed back into her seat on the couch. Her shoulders lost their stiffness, but the intensity never left her face. “Exactly how pretty?” she asked.

Laura’s stomach fluttered. She licked her lips. A thought crossed her mind that this was not something to do with an enemy spy, but she sent the thought away. Those were just labels, and this was Natasha.

“Beautiful, really,” she admitted. 

Natasha inched closer on the couch and put her hand on Laura’s knee. Her fingers and palm were light and very warm. Tingles radiated out where their skin touched.

“Funny, I think the same about you,” Natasha said. Laura’s breath shortened in anticipation, but Natasha went on. “I was trained from an early age in seduction techniques, Laura. They come naturally to me now. But I don’t want you to think I’m doing it on purpose.”

“Seducing me?”

Natasha laughed. “Being good at it.”

“I have to admit, you are very good at this. But I’m not holding that against you. This is what you want to do, right?” she asked, putting emphasis on the you.

Natasha stared at her and licked her lips. “Can I tell you a secret?”

Laura put her hand on Natasha’s and pulled her closer. “Anything.”

“Around the time we met, I overcame my programming. I’ve been… experimenting with doing what I want.”

That wasn’t what Laura had expected to hear. It gave her a joyful thrill for Natasha, to think that she had freed herself.

“That’s incredible,” she breathed. She wanted to know more, but Natasha seemed not to know what to do with Laura’s happiness for her. “Come here.”

Natasha seemed more comfortable with kissing. Their mouths came together in a welcome press of soft lips that parted quickly for a deeper taste. Laura followed Natasha’s lead, lying back on the couch to allow her to straddle her thighs and hover over her body, touching in all the right places. Laura slipped her hands under Natasha’s blouse and caressed her hips, ran her palms across the sides of her waist and made Natasha tremble.

~~~

Laura woke several times in the night to find Natasha still there. She pulled her close each time, and each time, Natasha let her, pressing into the warmth Laura offered.

“I may be gone for a long time,” Natasha said as the dawn birds began to make their noise. “I’ll give you a phone, but don’t use it lightly.”

“All right. Whatever you’re planning, remember you have a friend waiting for you.”

“Laura…” Natasha seemed to struggle for words. “I’m not someone you can depend on. You know that.”

Laura brushed red hair from Natasha’s eyes, tenderly knuckled her cheekbone. “I’ll be the dependable one for a while, then. Just take care of yourself.”

~~~

In the morning, Natasha did give Laura a burner phone. Then she leaned forward and gave Laura a gentle kiss on the lips. “Don’t worry when you hear about me,” she said.

“I’ll worry if I want to,” Laura replied. She squeezed Natasha’s shoulder. “Be careful.”

Natasha winked. “If I want to.”

~~~

It didn’t take long to hear about Natasha. The news spread from agent to agent that the Black Widow had murdered the head of Russian intelligence and not a few of his lieutenants before escaping Moscow and striking out on her own. Laura had thought that sleeping with an enemy agent had been a fuck-you to Natasha’s masters; she clearly lacked imagination. 

A day passed as other agents collected intel on the assassinations, much of which Laura would surely never see. Her burner phone didn’t ring. Laura didn’t expect it to, and she knew better than to dial the only number programmed into it. 

On the second day, she received a summons to the assistant director’s office. 

“We know you’re cultivating a relationship with the Black Widow,” he said. “Nobody has said anything because, well, there are those of us who have speculated on the possibility of her slipping her leash and going rogue. SHe’s strong-minded and clever, and she has demonstrated, at times, remorse--or at least, behavior that could be interpreted as such in a certain light. Your friendship with her--I frankly don’t support it, but I suppose it’s become the asset we were hoping it would be.”

Laura stopped herself from throwing away her career by interrupting and saying she wasn’t friends with Natasha for the CIA’s sake. She left the meeting with her job intact and the understanding that Natasha could possibly find a place there. The thought pulled at her over the following days, not because she thought it was a good one, but because Natasha should have the option. Maybe after everything she’d seen and done, she could never have a peaceful life doing something else (with Russian intelligence at her back, no less). If so, then she could do worse than the American intelligence community. If not the IA, then any of the other agencies, or even S.H.I.E.L.D.

A few weeks later, she got marching orders. Shanghai, where she was to liaise with her Asian-Pacific regional counterpart. Laura read between the lines and packed her burner phone. She texted the number in it when she touched down, a Chinese phrase, romanized, that amounted to “your place or mine?”

An hour later, stuck in traffic on the way to her hotel, she received a text back with an address. It turned out to be her own hotel’s address.

She checked in and went up to her room and waited. The jetlag got to her as it always did, and she fell asleep. When she woke up, Natasha was sitting on the edge of the bed. She wore nothing but a black negligee that stole Laura’s breath.

“Thought you might like this,” Natasha said. “If I know the CIA, then you came here with a deal for me. I was thinking we could fuck instead.”

Laura, sleep-stupid, said, “I do have a deal, but you don’t have to take it.”

“I really, really don’t,” Natasha said, her eyes narrowed. She stuck out her fist, turned it palm-down, and opened her fingers. A number of small objects, the size of tacks, fell to the ground. 

Laura, wishing for some coffee so she could be up to this conversation, leaned over and picked up one of the objects, recognizing it instantly as a listening device. “I didn’t put those in this room, Natasha.” She stared hard at her, thinking how important it was that Natasha believe her. 

After a moment, Natasha let out a breath and said, “I know you didn’t. The CIA plays dirty, but I never thought you did.”

“I’m still sorry. I should have known. Are you sure that’s all of them?”

“Did you forget who you’re talking to?”

“Never. Since we’re alone, why don’t you come here?”

Natasha stood, showing off her lingerie in the lamplight. Like everything she wore, it looked to have been made to fit. She wondered if Natasha had packed it in her getaway bag, or stopped somewhere on the run to have it made. Then she separated her knees invitingly.

~~~

Some hours later, Natasha lay with her head on Laura’s breast, resting back in the V of Laura’s arm, her body a smooth, warm length against her side. Laura slowly combed her fingers through hair dyed blond and enjoyed their closeness while she could.

“Why did we have to be rival international spies?” Laura asked rhetorically. 

Natasha blew against her skin, raising goosebumps. “You think I should join the CIA? No more rivalry then.” It was clear, however, that she had already decided against that move. 

“I think you should do what you want. You’re free for the first time.”

“You think I’m free? I killed--how do you Americans say it?--the big kahunas. They’ll never let me out of their sights.”

“American intelligence could fix that.”

“You don’t sound very confident, so I think not.”

“I’m obligated to make the offer. And personally, I think you should have the choice. As long as it really is up to you.”

Natasha turned her head in and bit Laura, playfully. “All this talk of free will is turning me on again.”

~~~

After Natasha crept off into the darkness, all Laura could do was go back to work. She met with her counterpart as planned, then flew back home. The next day, she spotted the assistant director in the group heading into her elevator--not unusual, but not an everyday occurrence. When they made eye contact, Laura gave the slightest shake of her head. The assistant director seemed not to acknowledge it, and that was the end of it. No one approached her for intel on the Black Widow. Laura wondered whether they had guessed that pressuring her would result in the loss of a good agent. She wondered also if they’d be right.

~~~

Natasha’s career quickly became legend at the CIA. She went from feared assassin of people important to Western interests to a fearsome assassin of--as one of Laura’s colleagues put it--some seriously bad dudes. Drug cartels, human traffickers, Russian spies; they all learned what Natasha Romanova really thought of them. Briefly, anyway.

Laura continued doing what she did best, finding people, but she never ran into Natasha during her travels. She tried not to take it personally and largely succeeded. After all, the CIA had made them; it would be reasonable to get spooked. Plus, Natasha’s former masters were still after her; maybe she thought she was being considerate, keeping Laura out of their sights.

Laura was less successful at not missing Natasha. After a time, she went on dates, tried to find some companionship. But no one quite had Natasha’s spark or made her feel like she was stepping outside of the mundanity of her life. She eventually took down her online dating profiles and focused entirely on work.

After a few years, reports of Natasha stopped coming. She dropped completely off the map. Even evidence of her killings cut off completely. One or two of her final sightings had described someone tired and erratic, no longer the female James Bond of legend. It became clear what must have happened, Laura nowhere nearby to stop it. 

She tried the burner phone at last, having kept it all this time in her lingerie drawer. But no one answered. Only then did Laura give up.

~~~

Carol Danvers was an Air Force major with an impressive CV. Tenacious and highly competent, she had nonetheless gone missing in a desert in New Mexico. Apparently she had been on a covert op of some sort, which was why the CIA was getting involved. As she read Danvers’ jacket on the plane from D.C., Laura couldn’t help but be impressed and not a little worried. A woman like this didn’t go missing easily.

The site where Danvers had last been seen was an underground bunker whose entrance was hidden in a stand of tall cactus in the middle of nowhere. There was no road access, only some traces of vehicle tracks leading off toward the county route Laura had veered off of to get there. She was alone, navigating by GPS, and had taken her sidearm along because of a bad feeling.

She took one last look around the flat landscape to be sure no one was out here, then opened the strange metal hatch that led into the space described by her Air Force contact. They had searched the place first, in determining that Danvers really was gone, so Laura didn’t expect to find much of any use. Then again, it sometimes helped to see the last known whereabouts in person.

“Well, bottoms up,” she murmured, looking down into the narrow ladder space that led to the bunker. She’d been worse places, but this one was pinging her creepy-meter.

A quick climb down, and the tunnel opened up into a hallway lined with closed doors. She stepped down onto the floor and put away the flashlight she’d taken out because all the lights were on. Debating whether to unholster her weapon, she called out, “Hello?”

“We’re here,” came a man’s voice from the nearest door. “Don’t shoot, we’re agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

Laura rolled her eyes. She’d never quite seen the point of S.H.I.E.L.D., and their agents always had the wackiest stories. “Oh, good. I’m CIA. Why don’t we all put away our weapons and take out our badges.”

Some rustling came from behind the door, then it opened. A man’s hands emerged first, holding a badge. To Laura’s eye, it looked legitimate. “Okay, come out, slowly.”

The guy who emerged wore beat-up jeans, a button-up plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat. His boots were the more expensive utilitarian type she would expect of a spy, rather than a local cowboy-type. 

“Clint Barton,” he said. “Howdy, ma’am.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Clint,” came a voice Laura had never expected to hear again. A woman with red hair, wearing black leggings and a stylish shirt and belt, stepped into the hall after him. “You’re not a cowboy, and I’ll wager Laura Miller knows it.”

Laura vaguely noticed her opportunity for a snarky remark come and pass. She was too busy staring at Natasha, who looked unblinkingly right back at her.

Clint pointed from one to the other of them and back. “So I take it you two have met. Should I… go away for a while?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were with S.H.I.E.L.D.? I thought you were dead!”

“Excuse me if I take that as a ‘no,’” Clint said, backing away a little but not leaving.

Natasha came a little closer. “It’s a long story. I wanted to get in touch, but it was… fraught.”

“Fraught. Like, thought your friend was dead kind of fraught?”

“Like working through a lifetime of brainwashing and becoming an intelligence agent again fraught,” Natasha countered. She said after a moment, “Although I take your point. I’m sorry, Laura.”

“Wait, so you knew Natasha before I did?” Clint asked, stepping on Laura’s acceptance of Natasha’s apology. The two women shared a look.

“Who is this guy, Natasha?” Laura asked.

Natasha stepped closer to the man and placed an easy hand on his shoulder. “Laura Miller, meet Clint Barton, my partner. He’s the reason I’m here.”

Laura reached out to shake his hand. He gave her a strong, respectful shake. “If that’s true, then I need to buy you a drink or three,” Laura said.

“Happy to take you up on that. When did you know Natasha?”

Laura said, “I’ll tell you over drinks, if Natasha joins us.”

Natasha nodded. “So we have plans for later. What about now? I assume you’re here looking for Carol Danvers, Laura.”

Laura had almost forgotten where they were, and why. “You guessed it. What about you? S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t usually look for missing people.”

“Our mission’s classified, I’m afraid. We’re supposed to search this bunker thoroughly and bring back anything... interesting.” She looked around the bleak hallway. “No reason we can’t all do our own thing at the same time.”

With that agreed, they went about a thorough search of the space. Laura entered each room slowly and carefully, wary of disturbing whatever evidence the Air Force might have left. She found laboratories, sleeping quarters, what might have been a communications room with all the consoles ripped out, only big screens on the wall left over. One room held a series of barred cells that made Laura feel very concerned, given that no one knew who had built and used this bunker.

Still rattled, she discerned the storage unit set into the wall by instinct. Clint helped her pull the door open, and then they all stepped back to observe the strange machinery forgotten inside.

“Do either of you know what these things do?” Laura asked, frowning at the technology.

Clint and Natasha looked quizzically at each other and shook their heads.

“S.H.I.E.L.D.’s scientists will have to figure it out,” Clint said. “Last time I turned on mysterious technology I walked around in someone else’s body for a week.”

Laura laughed at the joke, though he didn’t sound like he was kidding. In the end, she let them take it, with the promise that if they learned anything related to Major Danvers, they would share it with her.

Leaving to chase down her other local leads and let S.H.I.E.L.D. come in and transport the tech was hard. She wanted to be with Natasha badly, to tell her that she had been missed and find out what had happened to her in the years they’d been apart. Natasha must have sensed her reluctance. Up at the top of the ladder, under the overcast sky and alone together, she pulled Laura close and embraced her, reminding Laura of their meeting after Humboldt’s funeral.

“So you do hugs now,” Laura murmured into Natasha’s shoulder.

“With select people,” Natasha admitted. “See you tonight. We’ll bring the wine.”

~~~

The story of Natasha’s year on the run was as harrowing as Laura had feared. Despite Natasha’s intelligence and resourcefulness, she had made too many enemies too quickly and lived a life based on watching her own back at all hours, never safe. Making things harder for her, S.H.I.E.L.D. had tired of her for reasons of their own and sent Clint to assassinate her.

“He had me. But instead of killing me, he took me in, showed me a better way.”

They were all sitting very close in Laura’s tiny hotel room, several bottles down on the wine. Clint was sitting on one of the beds, apparently unable to hide the awe he felt at Natasha trusting Laura with her story. He’d spent most of the time silent, but with his mouth hanging open. Laura and Natasha sat cross-legged next to each other on the opposite bed, knees touching, occasionally holding hands.

“God,” Laura said. She turned to Clint. “Thank you.”

“You can call me Clint,” he answered, ruining the moment. Laura got the sense he did that a lot, but it was kind of funny.

Not acknowledging the joke, Laura said, “So he somehow got S.H.I.E.L.D. to hire you. I’m impressed.”

“Clint is a miracle worker,” Natasha said, beaming at him. Clint smiled back. If he had said at that moment that he loved her, it would have been redundant.

The moment passed, and they refilled and made a toast to Clint.

“I want to know more about you, now, Laura, if that’s all right? Natasha doesn’t let just anyone in. How did you meet?”

Laura looked to Natasha, and the second their eyes met, they burst into laughter.

“What? Is it a funny story?”

Clint eventually saw the humor, cementing him further in Laura’s esteem. 

In telling the rest of their story, she took Natasha’s lead in whether to reveal the extent of their relationship. Surprisingly, Natasha had told him in the afternoon that they had been lovers. Clint never once showed a prurient interest when that part was mentioned.

He did, however, lean forward and ask Laura all sorts of questions: where she grew up (a farm in Minnesota), how she came to be a spy (she had filled out a form on the CIA website early in college and been recruited straight out), whether she liked missing persons or had other aspirations (yes, she loved it and wanted to make the tiny division her own), where she lived these days (D.C., like them).

He took an interest in all her answers, and she found herself taking an interest in his interest. If he had been a blind date and Natasha hadn’t been right there…. Laura kept checking in with her by glance as Clint indulged his rather flattering curiosity, but Natasha just sipped from her glass to cover up an amused smile. Laura had to wonder what was going on. Well, they lived in the same city. They would have to meet up just the two of them and talk about it.

Eventually Clint ran out of questions and seemed to come back to himself. He looked at Natasha and something changed on his face. Maybe embarrassment. 

“Uh. Sorry, I… don’t usually give friends the inquisition like that. I’m sorry if I….” He waved his hand around, suddenly not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“No worries,” Laura said. “I’d say you were charming.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Natasha said wryly. “But we should probably go. You have an investigation to get back to tomorrow.”

Clint was oddly reserved as they left, as if pretending they had met minutes before and not had an intense get-to-know-you session for the last five hours. As soon as the door closed behind them, they started talking to each other, voices fading down the hallway. Laura was sad to see them go, both of them.

~~~

A week later, Laura was home and going over Major Danvers' files. She'd come up with almost nothing in New Mexico and would have to keep looking while working other cases. Before she could get morose over this lack of development, Laura heard a knock on her apartment door. When she looked through the keyhole, Natasha waved at her. 

Laura let her in with a smile, then asked, “Would it be all right if I?”

They kissed for long minutes in the entryway. Something in Laura loosened at the familiarity and the sense memory paired with Natasha’s closeness. When they came up for air, Laura combed her fingers through Natasha’s hair and brushed her knuckles against her cheek.

“I missed you.”

“Same. But you understand why--”

“Of course. No need to rehash it unless you want to.”

Laura split the dinner she had been making with Natasha and intertwined their ankles under the little table as they ate.

“Clint and I had a long talk after we left your hotel,” Natasha began. “You might have noticed he felt he had embarrassed himself. We love each other, but we hadn’t quite consummated anything by last week. His sudden interest in another woman was… let’s say interesting timing. But it was good because it made us talk. I told him that no matter how much I love him, I can’t be tied to just one person. I’d only feel trapped.”

“How did he take it?” Laura might have pegged him for a traditional kind of guy, but she was bad at those sorts of guesses.

“He loves me even if I’m not a monogamist. So we worked that out. Clint and I are now, as you Americans so poetically call it, a thing.”

Laura raised her water glass and clinked it lightly against Natasha’s. “I’m happy for you!”

“Yes,” Natasha said, as always uncomfortable with that sort of thing. “If you’re amenable, I’d like to start seeing you again.”

“You know I’m amenable.”

“Very amenable,” Natasha said, putting a dirty emphasis on the word that let Laura know she was going to get laid that night.

“Clint was also curious about asking you on a date,” Natasha said.

~~~

That was how the three of them became, in the American vernacular, a thing. Clint showed up with roses at Laura’s door for their first date, bashful at first, but more confident as they hit it off over dinner. Laura was ready to sleep with him by the third date, but he delayed long enough that she brought it up after a few weeks.

“I know Natasha is for it,” he told her, holding her close on his couch. They had been making out like they’d invented it a few minutes before, and Laura was hoping. “I know it in my head. And I want you so bad it’s a little embarrassing.”

“But you feel like you’re cheating.”

He hung his head. “Yeah.”

“Oh, honey.” She caressed his chin and pushed his head up again. “Would it help if she were here with us?”

“Oh, my God,” he said.

So their first time was with Natasha in the bed with them, naked, holding on to Clint’s back and telling him what to do with Laura. After that, you would never guess he had ever had a problem with seeing two women at the same time.

~~~

More than a year passed. Laura wondered at how serious they had all gotten about each other. If they hadn’t all been spies, she might have moved in with Clint by now. They had even talked about it, despite knowing it would look weird to their respective employers.

“You don’t like my cooking anyway,” Clint told her as consolation. They were in his kitchen, and he was, unfortunately, cooking something in the oven. She had been trying not to think about it while they talked over the kitchen table.

“That is true,” she agreed. “I’d be stuck doing my own cooking every night, just like at home, only with company.”

“So it’s really for the best,” Clint said.

Laura sighed, resigned. “I suppose. I just think there’s something special here, with the three of us, and I wish we could… I don’t know. Make sure it lasts.”

Clint knew about her past relationships, all of them pretty short-lived, not to mention Natasha's disappearing act. He took her hand and kissed it. “Natasha and I aren’t going anywhere. Except for tomorrow. We’re going to Budapest for a few days on assignment. But in a more meaningful sense, we’re here for you. Okay?”

Laura nodded and kissed his hand back. They stared at each other over the table, a contest they’d initiated early on that either led to sex or laughter, occasionally both. Before they were quite finished, the front door opened and Natasha called out, “Is Clint cooking? I should have stopped for Thai,” and Laura burst into laughter.

 

End


End file.
